Sonic Maestros UWUW Reveal Their ‘Musical DNA’ In An Exclusive Track-By-Track Dive Of Debut Album

Like the geometrical representation gracing the screen of their debut LP, UWUW (pronounced you-you) are multifaceted successful their self-titled album. The album, retired contiguous connected We Are Busy Bodies Records, is the champion late-Autumn artifact party, and everyone is invited. UWUW – a supergroup comprised of Jason Haberman (Dan Mangan, Yaehsun), Jay Anderson (Badge Epoque, Biblical, Lammping), and Ian Blurton (Change of Heart, C’mon) – created an acquisition that volition entreaty to fans of funk, jazz, soul, R&B, prog rock, and classical ’60s pop. Songwriters Chris A. Cummings and Drew Smith mix successful their distinctive ingredients to what is simply a feast for the ears.

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From the commencement of “Scattered Ashes,” UWUW is not a vibe but a groove that goes heavy and each night. “Staircase To The End Of The Night” volition soundtrack galore a 4 am’s arsenic radical caput location earlier the prima rises. “Landlord,” with its intricate steps and mathematical movements, argues for UWUW’s spot connected your Summer Jams playlist adjacent July. Closing with “Box Office Poison,” a opus that seems similar the progeny of Herbie Handcock and the Steve Miller Band, UWUW ends connected a precocious note. With a chill runtime of nether 30 minutes, UWUW never overstays its welcome. It really mightiness permission you wanting more.

For much astir this album, UWUW’s Chris A. Cummings and Drew Smith gave HollywoodLife an EXCLUSIVE track-by-track rundown of the self-titled merchandise and however some John Fogerty and Jim Morrison led to this album’s creation.

“Scattered Ashes”

Chris A. Cummings: I attempted to shoehorn each stray apocalyptic thought I had circa Summer of 2021 into the song, including readings from the screenplay of Jean-Luc Godard‘s Alphaville (1965). The satellite is ending, oregon perhaps, arsenic Sun Ra believed, we’re already past the extremity of the world. You mightiness extremity up dying for a cause, oregon adjacent “just because.” Who knows what time whitethorn bring, and similar the Zombies, being everlastingly Hung Up connected a Dream—in this case, a mislaid imaginativeness of a benignant of hippie oregon punk utopia—is the lone mode to unrecorded your life, the lone mode to support a healing authorities of mind.

“Staircase To The End of The Night”

Drew: The archetypal stone n rotation set I ever loved, for amended oregon worse, was The Doors. That indispensable play into the lyrics of this opus a small spot – The End, End Of The Night. It’s not a large leap to spot that those tunes are imprinted successful my philharmonic DNA.

Most of the lyrics and harmonies were suggested by the music. It’s already successful there. It’s not adjacent a lawsuit of dense lifting, conscionable listening. I was conscionable interpreting what Ian, Jay, and Jason enactment to tape. My occupation was much amusive than work.

“LANDLORD”

Drew: Lyrically, It’s similar [Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s] “Bad Moon Rising” but by a way-worse writer. When Jay asked maine for the title, I was going to say, “When The Landlord Comes,” but that would person led to google hunt hellhole for a batch of people. Or heaven. Maybe you’re into that benignant of thing.

“Box Office Poison”

Chris: The aboriginal 20th-century expression, “box bureau poison,” meaning a once-popular prima present abruptly striking retired with the public, was thing I latched onto astatine an aboriginal age. Something astir the romanticism of nonaccomplishment appealed to my young mind. During the pandemic I began watching Turner Classic Movies for astatine slightest 8 hours a day, successful the people of which I rewatched Hitchcock’s small-town execution enigma Shadow of a Doubt (1943), which prompted the opening line, “Don’t strain my disbelief”—as in, “Suspension of disbelief is each good and good, but this is pushing it.”

(The crippled of the movie, according to IMDB, is: “A teenage girl, overjoyed erstwhile her favourite uncle comes to sojourn the household successful their quiescent California town, dilatory begins to fishy that helium is successful information the ‘Merry Widow’ slayer sought by the authorities.”)

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Watching the movie present for the 3rd oregon 4th clip successful 2021, it occurred to maine that the full happening hangs connected a premise that I’ve ne'er rather been capable to judge in: the niece’s strained content that the uncle was not a murderer erstwhile helium truthful intelligibly was. Was this each portion of a propaganda exercise, promoting the wholesomeness of small-town surviving arsenic a distraction from the realities of WWII? We’ll ne'er know.

The duty was to constitute due lyrics for the superb backing way by Anderson/Blurton/Haberman/Hay, and I utilized immoderate materials I had astatine hand, whether it were lines from a Godard screenplay oregon watching a Hitchcock movie connected TCM.